ER dental-care visits on rise

Tuesday

Feb 28, 2012 at 12:01 AMFeb 28, 2012 at 3:00 PM

CHICAGO - More Americans are turning to the emergency room for routine dental problems - a choice that often costs 10 times as much as preventive care and offers far fewer treatment options than a dentist's office, according to an analysis of government data and dental research.

CHICAGO — More Americans are turning to the emergency room for routine dental problems — a choice that often costs 10 times as much as preventive care and offers far fewer treatment options than a dentist’s office, according to an analysis of government data and dental research.

Most of those emergency visits involve trouble such as toothaches that could have been avoided with regular checkups but went untreated, in many cases because of a shortage of dentists, particularly those willing to treat Medicaid patients, the analysis said.

The number of ER visits nationwide for dental problems increased 16 percent from 2006 to 2009, and the report released today by the Pew Center on the States suggests the trend is continuing.

In Florida, for example, there were more than 115,000 ER dental visits in 2010, resulting in more than $88?million in charges. That included more than 40,000 Medicaid patients, a 40 percent increase from 2008.

That’s because emergency rooms generally are not staffed by dentists. ER staffs can offer pain relief and medicine for infected gums but not much more for dental patients. And many patients are unable to find or afford follow-up treatment, so they end up back in the emergency room.

“If people are showing up in the ER for dental care, then we’ve got big holes in the delivery of care,” said Shelly Gehshan, director of Pew’s children’s dental campaign.

“It’s the wrong service, in the wrong setting, at the wrong time,” she said.

Pew researchers analyzed hospital information from 24?states, data from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and studies on dental care.

Not all states collect data on ER visits for dental care, but those that do reveal the trend, Gehshan said.

In 2009 alone:

• Fifty-six percent of Medicaid-enrolled children nationwide received no dental care.

• South Carolina ER visits for dental-related problems increased nearly 60 percent from four years earlier.

• Tennessee hospitals had more than 55,000 dental-related ER visits — five times as many as for burns.

Preventive dental care such as routine teeth cleaning can cost $50 to $100, versus $1,000 for emergency room treatment that may include painkillers for aching cavities and antibiotics from resulting infections, said Dr. Frank Catalanotto, a professor at the University of Florida’s College of Dentistry who reviewed the report.

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